


Liminal Spaces

by wood_c_thrush



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depressed Steve Rogers, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Protective Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7702264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wood_c_thrush/pseuds/wood_c_thrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liminality -- from the Latin, meaning threshold.  Galleries in art museums that are empty except for you.  The lighting section at Home Depot.  Laundromats at midnight.  </p><p>Spaces in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liminal Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Just a drabble I thought up. Thanks for reading! <3

 

James Buchanan Barnes fell from a train.  And the sun came up, and the world still turned.

 

A few days later, Steven Grant Rogers crashed into the Arctic.  Bucky would’ve killed him for that stunt.

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

Waking up wasn’t the beginning, or the end.  It was supposed to be.  He’d have been fine with either.

“Go outside, Rogers,” Fury had said.  “Eat a damn pizza or something.”

 

But his knuckles bled, pulsed red and dripped down.  Industrial lighting buzzed overhead and in his head until he couldn’t see straight, punches flying and landing and rolling down, down, down to rushing waves...

 

The bag burst.  So he got a new one.  There was always a replacement.

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

The aliens were unexpected.  Some mistakes along the way, his ass.  The helicarrier was a surprise, though, and saving the world wasn’t bad, either.  Shawarma after?  Fine.  But after shawarma, what then?    

“You should have left it in the ocean,” he’d said.  It rang a little too true even after his ears stopped ringing with shouts and screams and explosions.  Endless static buzzed instead, leaden and gray.  

New York was gone.  The open road it was. 

 

The star-spangled man with a Plan put on a checkered shirt and slacks and rode aimlessly south.  

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

“Lana, from analytics.  She likes running almost as much as you.  Great rack,” Natasha had said.  So he dropped to his knees in an alley like the good old days.  Whoever he was, he was a moaner. 

Steve sighed through his nose and spat.  None of them tasted right.

Whoever-he-was yelled after him, but was drowned out by the pulsing beats of whichever club.  Steve didn’t turn around. 

 

3:18 AM on a Sunday left a haze in his brain and on the edge of the sidewalk, fog and breath steaming under orange streetlights.  He forgot what he was looking for. 

Wal-Mart, a dull beacon in the distance.  24 hours of convenience.  He was out of peanut butter. 

 

 

The parking lot sat empty.  His skin would have crawled, were that still possible.

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

“Bucky?”

 

He’d jumped, this time.  Down from the bridge to where Steve stood.  It was the mask that fell, and it felt like closing a chapter.

 

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

Steve sat in the stairwell until concrete steps numbed his legs.  There were too many closed doors to choose from, so he wouldn’t.  Janus would wait. 

The majority of his existence was spent in stasis, those seventy years frozen in ether.  That wasn’t when it had started.  But it was where he returned.  To waking sleep, sleep-walking, walking alone at a rest stop on a highway where thousands passed through and none remained.  To limbo. 

“It’s your bed, right?  It’s too soft,” Sam had said.  Steve shook his head.  Alone under the covers before the sun rose at 5:13 AM, he didn’t notice. 

 

The top of the stairwell slammed open.  Warm light illuminated half his face.

 

“Fuckin’ hell, Stevie, how long you gonna keep me waiting?”

 

He shot to his feet and followed Bucky through the open door.  Their hands brushed.       

 

* * *   * * *   * * *

 

Sunlight poured in through the windows, shining off the vibranium grip on his neck.  In the pool of light hips pistoned between sweat-slick thighs, their owner growling with pleasure.  Steve moaned a sound that earned him a filthy kiss, chasing it down; his eyes rolled back in his head.

“’Til the end of the line,” Bucky had said.  A promise fulfilled.

 

Steve awoke to pads of fingertips caressing his cheek.  “Got places to be today, Stevie?”

He smiled.  “Already there, Buck.”      

                    

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://kandikyssis.tumblr.com/post/147768291412/places-where-reality-is-a-bit-altered) tumblr post.
> 
> Let me know if you liked it! <3


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